Chris Singleton

It’s been an ugly stretch for the Lakers recently. With the team losing four straight and six of its last seven, a win by any means necessary would be welcome in Los Angeles — even against the team with the league’s worst record, the Washington Wizards. Thursday night’s destruction at the hands of the Knicks…

James Harden — his playmaking skills, his 24.7 points per game and his beard — could have been members of the Washington Wizards. But owner Ted Leonsis balked at the cost. That according to a Washington Post report: The Washington Wizards turned down a trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder for James Harden this summer…

It isn’t so much that the Wizards have yet to win a game this season. It’s that the losses seem to get more and more heartbreaking each and every time. Washington fell to 0-11 on Saturday, after taking Charlotte to double-overtime before eventually losing by a final of 108-106. Even though the Wizards were typically…

LAS VEGAS — NBA Summer League finished up with its fifth consecutive day of basketball on Wednesday evening and, as usual, there was a lot of basketball played. Not all of it was good basketball, unfortunately, but it was all basketball and there were some good things happening. The best thing that happened was the…

LAS VEGAS — Josh Selby earned a vote for the NBA’s All-Rookie Third Team this past that many in the media felt wasn’t deserved. While that may have been the case, there’s a good chance he cemented himself a spot on the All-Summer League roster following Monday evening’s performance at the Cox Pavilion in lovely…

LAS VEGAS — The second day of NBA Summer League featured pretty the same things as the first — random cameos in the crowd by established NBA like Baron Davis, J.R. Smith and David Lee; a lot of less than stellar basketball interspersed with jaw-dropping highlights and 32 quarters of players most of the crowd…

LAS VEGAS — The NBA Summer League began on Friday and, unfortunately, none of the games were very close. Fortunately, however, there were a lot of pretty stellar performances that fans should be impressed with considering their rookies were playing in their first professional games. It’s tough to take too much of the game to…

Wizards rookie Chris Singleton will make just shy of $1.5 million this season, the first year of his rookie contract that could pay him $7 million over the life of this contract alone. But that’s not $640 million, which was the payout for last weekend’s Mega Millions lottery that you didn’t win either. So Singleton…

The New York Knicks lost their fifth straight Sunday, falling 106-94 to the Philadelphia Sixers in a game where the Sixers largely toyed with the Knicks for the fourth quarter. It’s not a surprise, downing sub-.500 teams by double-digits is kind of what Philly does this season. That’s their bread and butter. But of course,…

That the Wizards are terrible should not surprise you. A terrible team looking to change its personnel should not surprise you. But when any team declares itself completely open for business outside of one player, yeah, that’s worth at least a look. From the Washington Post’s Michael Lee: Source just told me #wizards have…

Here is our daily look around the NBA — links to stories worth reading and notes to check out (stuff that did not get its own post here at PBT). Kobe Bryant in a black facemask was an idea that died on his 1-6 shooting start Tuesday night. Not that he got a lot better…

There are about 30 NBA towns where MVP chants for Kobe Bryant have rung out. Pretty much the same for LeBron James and Derrick Rose. But it’s been different for the Washington Wizards — their home games have sounded more like road games at times. Combine the fact that the Wizards are not a real…

It all came together for one night. At home, against a tired Toronto team on the second night of a back-to-back. Flip Saunders put in a new starting lineup of guys playing with some grit — Chris Singleton and Trevor Booker start, and Andray Blatche comes off the bench. It worked — the Washington Wizards…

Each weekend we bring you 25 random observations from the NBA week that was. 1. Ramon Sessions is not shooting well, but he’s drawing a lot of contact and his assists are up this year. He’s got a 19.5 PER and can’t get over 25 minutes per game on the Cavaliers. He’s much more of…

Something needs to happen in Washington to turn the Wizards around. And while NBA players-only meetings usually have about all the impact of the Iowa Straw Poll it is worth a shot, so veteran Maurice Evans called one, reports CSNWashington.com. “We needed to address ourselves and identify what were some of the problems that the…

Players will be making their way back from overseas now that the lockout is effectively over, yes, even those that signed with the Chinese Basketball Association and their “no opt-out” rule. You’re going to see a slew of releases over everything from “injuries” like strained hamstrings to “personal differences” as reasons why CBA teams “release”…

The NBPA hasn’t done the best job of managing their PR front. David Stern has done his damnedest to control the public message of the lockout, all while the factions that have reportedly formed among the players threaten to decertify the union entirely and rip the 2011-2012 season apart. Yet individually, the lockout has provided…

You keep hearing the buzz — teams are trying to get together, to work out together. Normally this is the pre-camp time when teammates workout and play pickup together at the team facilities, but thanks to the lockout there is none of that. So some team leaders are trying to organize workouts. Andray Blatche tried…